Markets demand a little less conversation, a little more action from Draghi

Mario Draghi is patient. More patient than his audience on this sunny autumn day in Paris, where the European Central Bank held its October meeting.

The ECB president, relaxed and at times joking with Vice-President Vitor Constancio and host Banque de France Governor Christian Noyer, sitting to his sides, mastered with ease journalists’ repeated questions about possible policy action.

With inflation hitting a 3-1/2-year low last month and a far cry from the ECB’s target of just below 2 percent, money market rates banks use to borrow from each other tightening and political uncertainty in the euro zone top economies, many had expected to hear some kind of indication for action.

But Draghi patiently stuck to previous statements without revealing any signs a rate cut or another round of long-term loans from the ECB was imminent.

Towards the end of the press conference, Draghi hinted that at times the ECB was getting itself a bit impatient – with governments and their progress on reforms.

“Of course people who are leading institutions like ours would like to see everything happening very, very fast, but often the times and the speed that non-elected institutions have in mind is not the same as the actual political speed in different countries, which doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to urge them to act,” he said.